Sibling Chivalry
by yllimilly
Summary: YGOFFC S8R4. It's sometimes hard for Mahaad to juggle between his mom's and his little brother Atem's conflicting expectations. AU. Part 1 of Greener Pastures, companion fic to Diplomatic Immunity.


Title: **Sibling Chivalry  
**priest mahaad/prince atem  
Tags: drama, slice of life, remote AU, **T**-rated for grown up topics and language. (no violence or sexuality)  
Word count: 6300

Big thanks to _Chicary _for her valuable advice and help!

**A/N** Written for Compy's contest: Sealshipping [Priest Mahaad x Prince Atem]. My muses have led me to unexpected places, as usual, and I hope you will enjoy this piece. ~Milly

.m.

Once upon a time, there lived a poor boy who was so hungry that he decided to leave the city in quest for a fruit that would forever prevent his hunger. He departed at night because he knew the Great Dragon would be asleep and braved the cold sand, the scorpions in the desert and his crying stomach until he reached the sacred tree. It was full of sweet and scented figs, but when he tugged on one, the branch snapped. It woke the Great Dragon and when he snatched the boy away from the tree, his sharp claw cut the boy right below the eye.

He wanted to punish the boy for his crime, but he also pitied him because the boy had never known his parents. Merciful, the Great Dragon gave him not only his life, but a family that would take care of him and keep him sated. In return, however, the boy had to be loyal to him for the rest of his life, and he was. This is the tale of the first boy who became a Bakrit. It is repeatedly told by old women to their granddaughters and old men to their grandsons. And every time an orphan monk is taken from the temple into a wealthier family, the tale lives again.

.m.

It was a male voice, absolute and victorious, that made itself heard above all of the other travellers.

_"Land!"_

At first it was no more than a dot, then a cloud and, at last, some uncertain hints of human presence could be made out in the impermeable white mist surrounding the ship. Excitement brewed among those who leaned against the railings, especially the young men. Their eyelids were wide, joy spilled from their mouths and they embraced each other spontaneously. The news spread to the cabins and soon, children awoke and ran around excitedly, not understanding the reason behind the commotion lifting the hearts of the folk inhabiting the ship. Young men and women cried out in high pitched voices, brought to tears by the hormonal imbalance brought about by teenagehood. Instruments were taken out of their cases and the people of the Old Country rejoiced in song and dance, celebrating the birth of their new lives.

Amongst them, a couple, not very young but by no means old, stood by against the railing of the ship quietly. They watched in apprehension the metropolis' outline growing sharper as they neared it. The foreign skyscrapers stood tall and straight and were somewhat scary, yet that cityscape meant the promise of a peaceful life, a life led without fear, lead for the dream of calling their son _doctor_. For that purpose, they had renounced their beloved homeland, their estate and title, their sunlit gardens and their parents' funeral monuments.

.m.

Some of the other migrants the couple befriended on the ship either left for other cities but some stayed and stayed close. The young family, a woman, a man, their son and a boy from the temple, were invited by the Ishtars to stay over at a wealthy relative's home for a few days. In the end the father was too proud to tolerate this and quickly made arrangements to move out in a room - no more than a room - of their own.

The woman, resourceful as ever, was able to gather beddings from charities and some furniture from he streets. They all slept on a medium sized mattress but they did not complain; after months of bare linen on the cabin's floor, it was comfortable enough. Of course, there was nothing like the humps of hay they had back home; it was changed everyday and always smelled fresh. The woman wondered how the slaves were doing, how they had fared on their own after their masters fled. Better not think about it. Better not reminisce of the old country.

She couldn't stop her eyes from welling up and by her slumped postures, the man knew something was wrong as soon as he entered the room.

"Dearest," he called out from the front door as he removed his shoes. "Dearest, look at me." He was standing near her, and when she made it clear she wasn't able to face him, he embraced her from behind, nestled his chin in her neck.

"I need my little bird to be strong for me."

The woman emitted no sound but a few tiny ragged breadths, wiped her eye, and, with her other hand, she lifted a dry, greenish lump of vegetation. She held it out for him to see and placed it back in the jar whence it came.

"We already have a beautiful flower in the home. Why would we need another one?" That earned a small cackle from her. He turned her around. "We will have a garden. Soon. You'll see."

She wanted to say that a garden without sun is useless, but did not. There would never be any sun in all that mist and smoke the locals called 'smog'. She swallowed and her eyes weren't so misty anymore. "Any news from Mr. Khrosa?"

"Nothing." His mood darkened. He pointed at the window angrily. It faced nothing but a concrete wall covered in the brown streaks from some rusty metal above. "It's because of this room. I tell you, as soon as we move out, our luck will turn. You'll see."

She had been the one to insist in taking this room, despite its northern orientation which was not unfavourable according to their faith. The young wife felt like her husband was indirectly blaming her. "Have you asked your friends at the cafe?" Her pleading eyes were less and less understanding every time she asked that question.

"I told you, we don't talk about such things." He had made himself comfortable, sitting by the little table. She understood it was time to put on the kettle. When she put the lid on the earthenware, it fell in place perfectly, and, somehow, the woman had found the resolve to speak up.

"What do you talk about then?" Her back was turned to him and she did not see his features darkening.

For a moment, neither spoke.

They had always striven to avoid conflict, but she could not stand it anymore.

"I need you to mend one of my shoes. The sole is ripping." His tone was strangely relaxed; detached.

"No, dear. No." She spun around. "I want to know what you talk about that is so important. I want to know what could be so important that you talk about it all day."

"Dearest-" His voice rose like a warning.

"What have these men done for you that makes you spend more time around them than you do around us?"

Behind the door, four little legs stood.

Two little pairs of ears listened to the steadily raising voices, muffled and incomprehensible.

"Mahaad, what are they talking about?" The boy whose hair flew in undisciplined streaks of blond, auburn and black kept a hand over his six year old bladder.

"They're talking about old men."

"The old men babi plays with at the cafe?"

The older boy looked at him in astonishment. "How did you know?"

"I saw him. He gave me this but he said I can't tell mami I saw him there. One of the men gave me a sip of his drink and it tasted bad. And then they all laughed."

The room was strangely silent.

"Can we get in, now? I need to pee. Mahaad, can we get in?" The boy with funny hair whispered.

"No."

"Why?" They don't talk anymore."

"It's not a good time."

"Why?"

"Because it's not a good time."

"But why-y?"

The eleven year old - he was the first one from the household to celebrate his birthday in the new country - put his hand on Atem's mouth. "Because I know," he whispered even lower.

"You always say that."

"You know I'm always right," he pondered. "I know where you can pee."

The boys tiptoed down the hallway and down the stairs. When they were outside, Mahaad offered to carry Atem's school books. When the boy couldn't keep up his fast pace, he offered to carry him on his shoulders on the grimy sidewalks leading to the much anticipated toilet.

"No, no, no, let me down! Don't drop me -"

Atem crouched down, shielding his six year old bladder with his hands. "Oh no..."

"What?"

"I think I peed a little." He resumed his standing position. "Don't tell mami!"

"We're almost there."

"But why did you want to carry me-e?" he whined, almost crying and wasted from the long walk. "Why did you want to carry me if you knew we were almost there?"

"Because you were tired, dummy. If you weren't looking at your feet you would know that we're there."

"I'm going to pee, Mahaad."

A woman walked by with a handful of grocery bags and slowed her pace to see if the children were okay. Mahaad gave her such a stare down that she decided she knew better. Such authority emanating from such a little child! (She was well past the age where a childless woman could easily gauge young kids' ages).

"No! You can do it! You remember on the ship, when we played dimples? You were always the one who laughed last."

Atem grinned. "Yeah, I always won."

"So if you were able to hold your laughs, you're able to hold your pee. You can do it. It's right there."

He pointed a concrete cube adorned with the tarnished sign 'Dry Cleaner' written in the language of the old country. Beside it was a blank white door with a small window patched up with duct tape. It led to the basement.

They reached the building across the boulevard after a truly audacious jaywalking demonstration. Mahaad knocked on the doors. The temple was a sublet room at the basement level. "Master Etmed! Master Etmed!"

It was a white-haired boy who heard his desperate calls, standing leisurely at the bottom of the staircase. He looked up, looked at the noisy intruder and when he recognized him, he just walked away.

"Bakura! Bakura, don't go away! It's an emergency! Bakura!"

The tranquil boy reappeared, climbing up the staircase with the quality of a snail, not taking up any speed at Mahaad's urgings. Beside him, Atem's shifted like crazy, his legs tightly held together. "Mahaad, I'm going to pee for real this time..."

The locks clicked seemingly forever and the door opened just as slowly. "I'd have come quicker if you'd just stopped screaming-"

"MOVE!" Atem's school uniform was worth more than one of his snide remarks. They jumbled down the stairs and, miraculously, no leakage took place as per Atem's frequent verbal updates. Mahaad grabbed his hand and navigated them both through the maze he knew too well, almost knocking over a few teenage boys in brown togas busy in prayer or reading scriptures. He kept going until he bumped into an imposing adult torso.

"Not so fast, young one! You will take your shoes off, drop them at the door, and come back."

Mahaad opened his mouth but it only made the teacher stricter. "Not running, _walking_."

Mahaad couldn't very well interrupt him like he had his classmate, but he was very much tempted to. "Master Etmed, it's an emergency!"

"No excuses. Wait, who is that young man over there? Atem, you're not supposed to be in here!"

"That's why! It's an emergency and Mami will kill me if he wets his pants!"

Master Etmed's smile faltered. "Go open the door."

Mahaad obeyed and his teacher grabbed the agonized boy by the armpits and carried him to the washroom.

When Atem lowered his pants, not caring to hide his wee wee since there were no girls to see him, Mahaad closed the door behind him. The tinkling sound made him sigh with relief. He looked around to see if he recognized any faces among the older boys who were there.

"Master Etmed, if Bakura comes to the junior session and he stays for the senior session, that means he reads the scriptures twice as much as we do, right? Is he going to become a Heka Bakrit twice as fast too?" He'd always wanted to know, but Bakura never told him why he spent more time in the temple than at home.

The teacher laughed kindly. "Maybe he will, maybe. Actually, we were doing his homework when you stormed in like the Great Scaled Dragon." He had lifted his arms in the air as he said this, to show wings. Master Etmed was a storyteller at heart.

It was then that Atem opened the bathroom door, dramatically wiping his forehead. "By the Great Dragons, it feels good to pee!" Mahaad shrunk, embarrassed by the little boy's behaviour. He could tell the other marked boys were still annoyed by the commotion.

"Well Mahaad, you may accompany your 'brother' home for now. But tomorrow I want you to arrive half an hour early.

"But..."

"And you will mop the whole floor."

"But…"

"Next time, you'll remember to take your shoes off in the temple." He put his wide hands on the back of the two boys, guiding them toward the exit. "Goodbye, Atem."

"Goodbye." Atem had said this meekly. He hadn't met Master Etmed so often, so he wasn't comfortable around him.

By the time they were outside, it had begun to rain lightly, a mist that wasn't completely transparent. It was also dark. Mahaad wanted to complain but he didn't and Atem held on tightly to his hand.

"Mahaad..."

"What?"

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault." Mahaad looked ahead of them, trying to quicken the pace, but his brother's little legs wouldn't allow it.

"I should have gone to the bathroom when you asked me if I wanted to pee."

"It doesn't matter. Hurry up."

"But I'm tired."

The conversation pretty much went that way until they reached the doorstep of their new home.

The door flung open and a red-eyed mother jumped on the little boy, swooping her in a protective embrace.

"Oh Atem, Atem, Atem."

She rocked him in her arms as if to soothe herself, trying to hide that she had cried and that she was on the verge of crying again... for different reasons.

"I was so worried."

The father did not speak, but stood up, leaving his teacup alone on the table. She handed him the drowsy boy.

"Where were you?" She kneeled down and grabbed Mahaad by the shoulders.

"I took Atem to the temple." His tone was full of guilt, but he tried to make it pass as bravery.

"Don't you know I don't want you and Atem to be out when it's dark? Did you not think that something could have happened to you, that some bad people are waiting to hurt little boys like Atem?"

"Mami..." Atem had slipped off his father's arms to intervene. She ignored the little boy.

"It was dangerous, Mahaad. It was," her voice wavered, "very, very dangerous."

"Mami!" Atem tapped on his mother's shoulder, wishing to enlighten her. "No, it's okay! Nothing happened! I didn't even pee my pants!" He had a smile bright and optimistic as the sun. _The sun. _

"You will not have sweet figs for desert. Not tonight, not tomorrow." She didn't want to be angry at her son, and hoped this final warning would keep him silent.

"But Mami!" Atem's eyes opened wide like white teacups, as if though he had never suffered such injustice before. It was too much for him to understand. Wasn't everything fine in the end? Wasn't it what really mattered?

"And you, my little man, should have known better." She grabbed Mahaad by the ear, and the father grabbed Atem by the hand.

"Let's go for a walk."

"But Mami says it's dangerous." He put on his whiny voice. The father sensed the storm and paled.

"It's not dangerous when I'm with you. Come on, just - " He tried to pry the boys' fingers off the door frame without hurting them. "Atem, be good and let go - "

"No!" He didn't know if it was directed at his father who was pulling him by the waist, or at his mother who was securing a docile Mahaad in place on her thighs.

"Atem!" The father wanted to scold his child, but he didn't want to raise his voice at him. It would only make his wife angrier. The child did not follow that principle and cried even louder.

"No! No! No!" His nose was runny and the tears blurred his vision. He could not see the spank, but he could hear it. His protests were an incoherent mess of 'noes' and the father only lowered his head meekly when an old woman glared at him and his raging infant through the crack of a neighboring door. The last thing they needed was the police on their doorstep or, even worse, an eviction.

.m.

Years passed. They moved into a new apartment. It was further away from the school and temple, but it had not one but _two_ closed bedrooms and a large window in the living room through which the sun could shine. It was facing East and brought the husband better luck in finding a source of revenue. However, he could never admit to his male drinking friends that it was his wife who helped him enter the factory which he now worked in.

The wife was busy watching over supper and washing some rags when the doorbell rang. She wiped her hands on her apron and opened the door to a slightly overweight man in a denim jacket. She looked at his muddy shoes with horror when he stepped nonchalantly in the dwelling but said nothing.

"You got a pipe leaking?"

"Wait, I, hum, I ask my son - _Mahaad_!"

Inside the room, the teenager's head shot up from his physics textbook. "Atem, can you go?" He dove back into his problem solving.

_"Mahaad!"_

He looked at his roommate, annoyed, "Atem, do you-" and saw Atem lying facing the wall on their top bunk. Mahaad stood up from his desk and yanked the earplugs hanging from the fourteen years old's ears. "Atem-"

The youngest rolled over lazily to face Mahaad. "She asked you, not me." And she kept asking.

_"Mahaad!"_

_"Yes, Mother!"_ He turned to the younger teenage. "You sneaky brat."

He was already back in his original position when Mahaad opened the bedroom's door and walked the few meters that separated him from the landlord. He no longer was the infant that had been bought at the temple, nor the scrawny boy that was seasick for three months straight. He was a handsome teenager that towered over his caregivers, stronger strong enough to make the mother's spankings look ridiculous. "It's the toilet. It always runs." The landlord, used to catering to all kinds of people, did not give much notice to Mahaad's traditional attire. They walked to the bathroom.

The mother tagged along, standing behind them in retreat, wincing when those horrible boots left imprints on the immaculate white tiles. Mahaad was very confident about the whole ordeal.

"I tried to fix the chain from inside-"

_"Tell him how it leaks, Mahaad."_

"Yes I tried to fix the chain with a safety pin."

_"Are you telling him?"_

_"Yes, mother -_ I used a safety pin to join the-"

_"You should tell him about the ants too."_

The little man waited while the tall young man clenched his teeth together, doing his best to stay polite. _"That's what I'm trying to do, mother, if you would only let me."_

_"Well," _she pursed her lips together, not content with having been humiliated in front of a stranger, even though he had no idea what was going on._ "I'm going to need your help with the laundry when you're done with the man." _And she trotted off to the kitchen, her wounded pride in tow.

He grumbled and returned to the landlord. After they scheduled a suitable time for the plumber to come, Mahaad saw him off (the mother was elbow deep in a lamb carcass) and went back to his room instead of going straight to the kitchen and its soaking buckets like he knew he would.

"Dammit Atem. Now I have cleaning duty because of you."

"It's not because of me. You always manage to piss her off."

"Don't use those words when you talk about your mother."

"One, it's **_our_** mother. Two, whatever. I'll do it if you do my math homework."

Mahaad hesitated. This little bargain had been struck quite a few times already and Atem would eventually have to understand math if he was to go to medical school. "Okay, but it's the last time."

"Last time was the last time too." He put his music player aside and slid off the bed. "I'll go to the bathroom while you bring me the buckets. Don't forget to lock the bedroom door this time," he instructed.

And so Mahaad was able to focus on his physics homework again for a good half hour.

Father arrived from his shift, and that meant supper was served. Mahaad performed the cleansing ritual, a sort of grace, before anyone started eating. Atem found a good conversation topic to brighten the mood.

"Mahaad scored best today in athletics, again."

"Very good, Mahaad."

It made him blush a little. He was not used to receiving compliments from his mother. Maybe that's because she felt bad for imposing the laundry on him. She really had no clue about his and Atem's little bargain at the time.

"Yes, you're good for my wallet, Mahaad. I bet twenty on you and I got a hundred and eighty back. It never paid so much to skip class."

"Atem! You shouldn't talk about money at the table. You will bring bad luck and Mahaad will have to pray twice as much to cancel it out." Luckily, her superstitions made Atem's skipping class go unnoticed.

The junior monk's mood darkened a little.

"Well that bodes well for the nationals," remarked the father.

"And I spoke with the Ishtars today about borrowing their car so that we could go watch you," added the mother.

Mahaad froze.

"About the Nationals..."

Everybody hung to his lips, quietly.

"They won't let me participate."

"I knew it," said the father. He looked at the sandy headscarf Mahaad was wearing that covered his long brown hair completely. "I'm sorry for you."

"What?" Atem dropped the word like an H-bomb. "You're giving up? You're not even letting him believe that he has a chance?"

"He _has _no chance against these laws; against this country."

"It's your country too," replied the young man whose fiery hair matched his temper. "And what about you, Mahaad? Are you going to just accept your fate and feel sorry for yourself? Can't you take that thing off for thirty seconds?"

"I'm not renouncing my vows for a high school tournament."

"Stop pretending like you don't care. I know how much you want this."

"Stop pretending that _you _care about what I do."

"That's enough!" The mother stood up sternly, scoop in hand. She gave everyone a helping of spiced mashed root vegetable and everyone chewed silently for awhile.

Mahaad felt like it was his duty to liven the atmosphere.

"Master Etmed asked me to help teach the junior session at the temple-"

A genuine cry of joy came from the parents. "That's wonderful!"

"That's great!"

"That's a pile of B.S."

"Atem! Language!"

"- so I wouldn't have time to practice for the Nationals anywayws."

"But why?"

"Because that's what Bakrits do, and I just so happen to be one."

"You don't have to. Bakura doesn't even go to the temple anymore."

"Well Bakura's not... it's different."

Mahaad didn't want to be interrogated about his prolonged absences from the temple. Everybody in the community knew saw on the boat how Bakura's family treated him. And the father still hadn't found work after years in the new country.

"You're different, too! You're smart! You're good at sports! You're on the student council! You could become anything you want!"

"I'm a Bakrit and I want to stay one."

"Boys -"

"This is pointless! What's the point of sending him to school if he's going to become a stinking priest stuck in a stinking basement all the time?"

"A Heka Bakrit, Atem -"

"What's the point of coming to this country at all if you're just going to repeat the same mistakes our people did?"

The father slapped his hands on the table. "Atem!"

_"Shut it, Atem, you're not helping,"_ Mahaad whispered really fast in the language of the new country.

_"I will when you wake up and start standing up for yourself, loser,"_ he replied in the same tongue and in the same furtive way.

And, upon hearing those sentences, the meaning of which she did not comprehend, the mother threw her porcelain cup on the floor, causing the little hairs on everyone's neck to stand.

"YOU WILL SPEAK OUR NATIVE TONGUE AS LONG AS YOU LIVE IN THIS HOME AND EAT AT THIS TABLE!"

Her loud breadths eventually slowed and the clink of a utensil being dropped in a plate was heard. Atem stormed out of the living room and into his bedroom. Mahaad stared at his own food, feeling guilty about the scene he could have prevented. No one made a move to appease him and no one made a move to stop him when he stormed into the living room and out of the apartment door.

Struck with a pang of maternal guilt, the mother jolted to her feet and ran for the door, pleading to her only son, "It's dangerous-"

"For the love of GODS! Mother! I'm SEVENTEEN YEARS OLD!"

So resonated the first son's voice in the hallway, whipping his mother's heart.

The father let his head fall into his hands. They were about to break their two months long streak spent without a noise complaint.

.m.

It was agreed among the younger ones, especially those who immigrated young enough to have no memory of the old country, like Atem, that while religious festivities had the undeniable benefit of keeping their parents' spirits high for a good week or so, there were far too many to be enjoyable. This one wasn't so bad, however, because there was a new girl that he had never met before. Her name was Mana and she lived in a small town on the western coast. Her mother was a distant relative of the bride; she was youthful and open minded and _cool_. But then she told them about how Atem and Mana spent all of their time together on the ship as babies and it gave a reason for the two reunited diaper buddies to bond.

At that moment, Mahaad judged he knew enough of Mana's mother to like her.

All other parents were busy being loud and drunk in the basement that once served as a temple and now as a cultural community center. The younger generation hung out outside near the back door. Someone had snatched a whole bottle of liquor and it was being passed around. Malik was wrestling with a disposable lighter and a mint-flavored cigarillo.

"If only Bakura was here, he could light it for me."

"If Bakura was here, he'd take it from you and rub it in your face that you're not a real smoker."

"You're not a real smoker either, Isis."

"I didn't know you smoked, Malik. Aren't you afraid your parents are going to see you?" said Mahaad, half polite, half amused.

"Rishid's got me covered," he said simply. He was downstairs with the adults and the rest of the Bakrits: Karim and Rishid, and the others were too boring for Atem to remember their names.

"Who is Bakura?" Mana had heard quite a bit from him in such a short period of time.

"He's another Bakrit."

No one wanted to go further than that.

"That means he's sort of adopted, right? Is he coming today?"

They were two delicate questions nobody wanted to handle.

The guys shifted in their places and the girls avoided Mana's eyes. It was Atem who had the guts to speak up.

"We don't know. He hasn't come to school in over a week. And Mahaad tells me he hasn't shown up at the temple either."

A dreadful silence would normally have set in because they all knew Bakura's family was downstairs and wouldn't let them know where he was or why he wasn't there. But Mana's eagerness to learn more on the culture that her mother hadn't transmitted to her burst their angst bubble. "Oh! You really go to the temple?"

All were puzzled by her reaction.

"Unfortunately, yes, my boring brother likes it so much he wants to become a Heka Bakrit."

"I think it's so cool that you call him your brother," added a sincerely happy Mana. And, this time, the conversation died for good. The Ishtar's went for more drinks and the other kids followed them because their were richer and prettier and cooler than them.

Only Mana stayed, because she knew nobody and Atem had been nicest to her.

And Atem stayed, because she was pretty and nice and interesting and free but at the same time she understood what he went through, unlike the local girls he met at school.

When he flirted with her, ignoring Mahaad's presence, she was responsive.

Mahaad decided that he didn't like her, either.

.m.

"Come on. It'll be fun."

"I don't have time, Atem." The twenty one year old tapped away furiously at a graphic calculator. He actually was in a bad mood.

Atem slid off his half of the bunk bed and sat on the lower one. "Come with me... Mahaad..." He tugged at the traditional headdress, hoping to get a reaction. What he got was a blind whip of the hand. Which was just as good. He tugged again, and a bit of the fabric came undone. Mahaad turned around, stood up, grabbed Atem by the wrists. "Stop. Nagging. Me." Atem did not resist, it unnerved Mahaad and he pushed him on the bed. Atem let himself fall like a rag doll.

"You've had the craziest mood swings since the wedding."

"Because you've been pestering me all week."

"Why can't you be a junior priest_ and_ have a life?"

"Becoming a priest _is _my life."

"Don't you have something else than religion in your head?"

"Well duh." _Looking after your sorry ass_, he wanted to say, but somehow he felt like he shouldn't.

"A girl?" Atem was excited, thinking he was beginning to see through his brother's non existent love life.

"That's none of your business."

"That's a yes. Tell me."

"That's a definite _no-_ and I made my vows anyway." Mahaad was relieved his lie worked so well. Maybe that's because it was the truth.

"Too late. Secret's out. You can vow to serve the Gods but that doesn't mean you can't have feelings for someone. Vows or not, you can't control that."

"Okay Atem, thank you for the therapy session, but I need to do this - you know what? I _don't_ actually need to do this homework. I don't need to redo my high school math all over again."

"You'll do it because Mami will get angry if I fail."

"Nope. I actually don't care if you fail math."

"You care because you know it'll break their hearts if I don't get in med school."

Mahaad stayed silent. "If you're so smart why don't you do this yourself. Get off my bed. Why don't you stick to your bed? DO you remember how you _cried_ to have the upper half."

"I was ten. And it's our bed."

"I refuse to call this _'our'_ bed. It's disgusting."

"What? It's not disgusting to share a bed with a sibling. We did all the time when we were little."

"Well it is now," he turned to hide his face, "and we're not brothers."

"But we _are_."

Mahaad heard the ruffling of fabric, and he concluded his wimp of a 'brother' had finally sat up.

"We're not. We're not related so we're not brothers. I don't have the remotest idea who my parents are. My mother could be a whore for all I know."

"Your parents are in the next room, and I think they're fucking."

"Ewww! Atem, are there no bounds to your vulgarity?"

"Are there no bounds to your vocabulary?" His mocking face grew serious. He was about to get educational. "Look. Here."

This forced Mahaad to face him. Luckily the tinge on his cheeks could now pass as... anger-face. "You girly face. Boring."

"Chicks totally _dig _my girly face. Look here," he pointed at his last name on his own permanent resident card.

"I don't want to know about your sex life." He wanted to turn back to the graphic calculator but a hand on his shoulder prevented him from doing so.

"And look again..." he produced another card from his pocket: "here."

"We have the same last - how did you get this?" He swung his arm to get a hold of the second card but Atem avoided it, throwing himself back on the bed.

"None of your business."

"Why - what for-"

"To do what you don't," Atem said with a flat face. Then he laughed. The confused look on Mahaad's face was priceless. "To get in bars."

"Give it-" Mahaad tried to snatch it again but failed, "back!"

"You never use it anyway." He bit on the card, holding it between his teeth, and slouched back, leaning against the wall in an extremely unhealthy posture.

"Well now you can keep it." Mahaad stared at him in disbelief. "What's up with you tonight? You act like a twelve year old."

Atem let the plastic rectangle fall on his lap.

"Come with me. There's lots of girls. There's a girl for you. Out there. A girl who appreciate a _big.._. vocabulary like yours."

The non stop innuendos of the hormone driven boy bothered him for some reason. And his ability to argue decreased significantly.

"You're childish."

"You're talking like an old man!"

"Give me back my I.D. You can't pass as me anyway." Mahaad wondered why he was still having this pointless discussion with Atem.

"We don't look alike."

"Yes we do."

"We're NOT. Even. Related."

"Okay, okay. I don't look like the dork on this picture. But they don't care."

"I don't care either - I just don't want you to get me in trouble!"

"Do you really think I'd go anywhere risky?"

"Let me think... Yes."

"Well you're wrong. I wouldn't take Mana anywhere sketchy."

"Mana?" He thought she went back to the west coast with her mother, and gave Atem a suspicious look.

"Okay, okay, fine, I give up! I didn't really want to make you go out more, even though you need it. I'm taking Mana on a date."

Mahaad's face was a mix between unimpressed and speechless.

"Come on, man."

"Don't _'man'_ me."

"Can I use it?" Atem showed Mahaad's ID.

The future priest looked at it, then at Atem, and sighed.

"Why are you asking me if you already have it?" He turned to his graphic calculator.

Atem smiled. He knew that Mahaad giving him the cold shoulder meant surrender, but this victory wasn't as satisfying as it normally would be. Like Mahaad really had given up on something.

The leather clad one pocketed the card and opened the bedroom's door.

"Thanks."

And he left.

Mahaad was good at math, but matters of the heart - his own - were still a mystery to him.

.m.

**A/N** I chopped many scenes from this because while they have been pleasant to write, the were not essential to illustrate the shipping and I know that not everyone here has time to read 10 000+ words each round. Thank you for reading and please let me know what you think!


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